R.S. Russo - ODD AND CHILLING ENCOUNTERS: True stories of the unknown

Ghost, phantom, apparition, poltergeist, and spectre are some of the names used to describe the soul or spirit of the dead. Ghosts can be an invisible presence, they can also appear to the living in a shape, a shadow, a wispy smoke or a life like vision.

Ghosts are not always visible, and hauntings can be in the form of lights, odours. strange noises, voices and whispers. Sometimes people may feel a breeze or draft of wind, and objects are moved or misplaced when no one is around.

For centuries people have believed in ghosts, with tales of places and even people who are haunted.

Ancient Egypt hieroglyphic inscriptions show that they believed the soul continued to move on after death, if the ghost of someone was to show up on earth it often meant that something was very wrong with either the bodies burial, tomb, or even a disrespectful remembrance.

Classical Greek ghosts were thought to be spirits that stayed close to their corpses, so cemeteries were often avoided by the living. People feared the dead would haunt them if they were not mourned and given the correct ceremony. Each year the ancient Greeks would hold a ceremony to honour the dead, inviting their dead relatives, they would then firmly tell the ghosts to leave them alone until the following year.

Ancient Romans would bury lead or pottery with a curse scratched into it, believing that a ghost of the dead could exact revenge on an enemy.

In the middle ages people believed that ghosts were either evil and sent to torture the living, or souls of the dead that were trapped in purgatory, often relating to sins from when they were alive. The tormented souls would appear to the living as pale and sad, dressed in rags. They would encourage the living to confess their own sins, and also to pray for the deads suffering to cease.

Belief in ghosts often offers people comfort. In the 1840s spiritualism developed mainly in English speaking countries, this enabled people to reach out and speak to the dead through mediums, providing information and a contact to the afterlife.

With various cultures using rituals during a funeral to ensure the spirt of the dead will not haunt the living. Many people believe in the spirit world, (Around a third of the Chinese population and almost half of British and Americans according to various studies) some often try to stay in contact with their loved ones.

My old house Location Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England

A few years ago my ex and I bought an old terraced house near woodhouse in Nottinghamshire. It had been unoccupied for many years and we couldnt understand why, as it was a nice sized house in a good location.

There were strange things that began to happen, at first it was small things like lamps turning on by themselves, my cat started acting really odd, as though it was following something we couldnt see.

One afternoon there were 3 of us sitting watching TV in the living room. We had a huge mirror and it suddenly fell from the wall and smashed in front of us, the fixtures were still in place, the mirror was not an easy one to remove, it would take 2 people to lift it from the fixtures, it really puzzled me how it could have happened. Our electrics began to constantly trip, things would switch on and off without touching anything. I paid to have the whole house rewired and checked over, but it continued.

Another time I was home alone, there was a loud bang upstairs, the cat was with me so I knew it had to be something else. I dashed upstairs and in the spare room there was a big heavy box that was full of personal belongings, sitting in the middle of the floor. The strange thing was that the box was kept on top of a wardrobe and it was really heavy to lift, if it had fell it would have been close to the wardrobe, and the contents would have been over the floor, but it was neatly placed in the centre of the floor.

One night my ex and myself were awoken by the sounds of someone crashing around in the kitchen, we thought we had been broken into, cupboard doors were opening and slamming, someone was going through the drawers, so cutlery smashing around could be clearly heard. We were terrified. We knew we needed to do something, so we put the stairs light on to alert the burglar and grabbed something each to use as a weapon.

We both went downstairs, expecting to be confronted by an intruder, but there was no one there. We put all of the lights on downstairs, checked all doors and windows, it was clear, there were no signs to show anyone was or had been in the house, to make matters more confusing, there was nothing out of place in the kitchen. I was so relieved when I moved from that house.

The Night-watchman JW, location NYC, USA

I worked for a short time as the night watchman at a very old, historic cemetery. I worked the 4pm - 12am shift, the cemetery generally closed at 6pm, so around 5:30pm, I would lock the main gate, then would start driving through the cemetery to notify any visitors that we'd be closing soon.